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I was telling a friend the frightful but eventually good news. British law enforcement apparently had pre-empted a plot probably concocted by al-Qaida and intending to use liquid explosives on flights from London to the United States. Carry-on toothpaste might have to be sacrificed.

There was a pause. My friend had a distant look. Then my friend said, unhappily, "This is going to help Bush."

There, in one anecdote, is your American political climate. There, too, is your midterm election.

My friend is not a bad person, quite the contrary. My friend is not even a political person, normally. My friend is not hardened to the horror of blowing up innocent people in the cause of an insane religious fanaticism.

My friend has simply become obsessed, consumed by a kind of hatred for what George W. Bush has done in and to Iraq. My friend is motivated above all else by the prospect of a better day when we get a different president, and more specifically, an imminent day this November when this president's party might lose vital ground in Congress.

A national election is about an overriding theme and a prevailing public mood. This midterm election's theme, as in 2002 and 2004, will be war and security.

Until the British performed their vaunted police work, the war and security issue for November was coming down to the Bush administration's indisputable folly in Iraq. The situation worsens by day and any reasonable prospect of a positive resolution, both for the people of Iraq and the Americans who invaded and sacrificed lives, seems out of the question.

Whether we depart Iraq today or in a few years, we'll leave religious and sectarian violence and instability. Iran's anti-Israel, anti-American theocracy will be strengthened. Terrorists will be emboldened. Saddam will rant from prison, and he will be America's only trophy.

But now, thanks to British police work, Americans have reason to recall the basis for their security vote in 2002 and 2004. They have reason to ponder whether their overriding political calculation in November should be not a failed president's tragic bungling in a misbegotten invasion, but that people in caves never rest in their evil plotting against us.

Karl Rove knows that if the midterm elections center on terror instead of Iraq, Americans will choose the party of Bush with its eavesdropping and wiretapping and financial record interceptions.

Republicans have long blended these issues, telling the big lie that the war in Iraq is a war on terror. Now Democrats are attempting to define the issues singularly as well. They're saying we could better stop the terrorists if we weren't preoccupied with the failed nonsense in Iraq.

But it won't work -- any longer for Republicans, ever for Democrats.

Today's typical American voter believes the Bush administration has failed the country tragically in Iraq, but is still a better bet than Democrats to bend our liberties to emulate the British and intercept sinister terrorist plots.

One vote can't cover both those waterfronts. The voter must choose one or the other. Democrats win if Iraq is the foremost issue. Republicans win if terror is.

Which? Considering our attention spans, it'll probably depend on whether the terror threat presents itself anew between now and November. Big terrorist news from August might not be enough for Republicans in November, especially if we've worked out the carry-on rules by then or become accustomed to unbrushed teeth.

John Brummett is an award-winning columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and author of "High Wire," a book about Bill Clinton's first year as president. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com.